Medical Fulfillment Services

As a Healthcare 3PL provider, we’ve stored and shipped various medical products. Our services are available for a wide array of healthcare items.

Analyzing equipment, respiratory machines, and various patient care products.

Track & manage lot numbers and expiration dates with ease.

Access product serial numbers in inventory and shipments.

Prioritize inventory fulfillment by first in first out or first expired first out.

Ship using “bill 3rd party” or your own shipping account with carriers.

Ship parcel, LTL, and full truck loads all under one roof.

Ship internationally to 220+ destinations with DDP or DDU.

Connect with EDI partners for compliance and automated order entry.

No management fees & industry leading shipping rates.

On-Time Shipment

Healthcare and medical fulfillment is a branch of third party logistics (3PL) that specialized in the storage, picking, packing, and shipping of medical or healthcare supplies and equipment.

Healthcare fulfillment plays an important role in getting medical products to businesses, clinics, hospitals, or directly to consumers. Choosing the right fulfillment company ensures smooth operations and assists you meeting patient needs.

What does medical fulfillment include?

At its core, medical and healthcare fulfillment covers the complete backend logistics operation of a medical product company, getting the product from the hands of a manufacturer all the way to the customer or end user. Typical services include:

Inventory Storage

Safe and secure storage of your healthcare products with accurate inventory reporting and lot, expiration, serial number tracking.

Order Picking & Packing

The process of packing orders whether in cartons going to a customer or on pallets for larger wholesale orders.

Custom Kitting or Assembly

For more complex needs when a product needs to be assembled prior to shipment or when multiple SKUs need to be combined to create a kit product or bundle.

Labeling

Custom labeling for provider specific barcodes, lots, expiration dates, serial numbers, and more.

Shipping

The process of providing postage and printing shipping labels for medical product shipments going on your 3PL’s account or billed 3rd party to your customer.

Types of products that require healthcare fulfillment

Virtually all physical healthcare products require fulfillment. Medical fulfillment centers typically handle non-temperature sensitive items like:

• At-Home Diagnostics Test Kits
• Wound Care Products
• Medical Disposables and One-Time-Use Items
• Medical devices and Accessories
• Over-the-Counter (OTC) Health Products
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
• Rehabilitation Aids & Mobility Products

What to look for in a medical fulfillment provider

Choosing the right medical 3PL isn’t as easy as choosing an ecommerce fulfillment company. The most important aspects when making your decision include accuracy and traceability. Heres what to look for:

Experience in Healthcare Logistics

Fulfillment of medical products involves specific handling procedures, especially when dealing with products that impact health and safety. Finding a medical 3PL that has experience in the healthcare and medical space is important to ensure products are handled correctly and packages meet compliance regulations for your clients.

Clean & Secure Facilities

Your products should be stores in clean, secure warehouses with tight inventory controls to make sure your customers receive items as they expect, and that inventory is always spot on.

Lot, Expiration, and Serial Number Tracking

Finding a fulfillment provider that has systems in place to track lots, expirations, and serial numbers is extremely important in the medical industry. Your medical 3PL should be able to report lots in inventory and specific lots and serial numbers shipped to customers at any gives moment should a product recall ever come up. Your 3PL should also support inventory allocation preferences like First-In-First-Out (FIFO) or first expired-first-out (FEFO) to make sure new inventory doesn’t take priority and products don’t expire.

Customization Capabilities (Kitting, Bundling, Labeling)

Making sure the fulfillment company you choose has customization capabilities will help you be prepared to solve customization challenges as they come up. This could be anything from custom barcoding and labeling required by healthcare facilities, the assembly of diagnostics kits especially in tele-health, or the need to create new case quantities as required by clients.

Accuracy & On-Time Shipment

In healthcare, small mistakes can cause major issues. Choosing a partner with a proven track record can make a night and day difference in making sure your logistics operation runs smoothly. Fulfillment providers that have multi-step item verification ensure your customers always receive the correct products with the use of barcode scanners and shipping scales that verify items before they’re sent.

Robust & User Friendly Platform

Managing your companies fulfillment operation through emails and spreadsheets could be a huge challenge. The importance of choosing a partner with a fulfillment platform cannot be underestimated. This gives you the ability to manage orders, see statuses or tracking information, gain visibility into live inventory, and get reports to see the lots, expirations or serial numbers you have on hand at any given time.

Flexible Shipping Options

Fast and affordable shipping is key in reducing costs and improving customer experiences. Your fulfillmentt provider should offer a variety of service levels and carriers while giving you the ability to save on shipping with their volume discounts. Additionally, medical product distributors require orders to be shipped on their shipping accounts so the need for being able to assign 3rd party accounts to orders is crucial.

EDI Integrations

While not required, having EDI integration capabilities could be a huge time saver for your team and reduce order entry errors. Since most hospitals and medical distributors place orders via EDI, having EDI integrations can automate the order feed directly into your fulfillment companies platform resulting in faster order fulfillment and elimination of the chance of erroneous order data.

Common Healthcare Fulfillment Challenges

Here are some common challenges faced by healthcare and medical companies when choosing a 3PL partner.

Inventory Mismanagement

Due to expiration dates and product lots, poor inventory control can lead to compliance issues and increased waste.

Solution: Ensure your 3PL utilizes a system with lot tracking capabilities and settings to assign first-in-first-out (FIFO) and first-expired-first-out (FEFO).

Package Non-Compliance

Medical shipments often require specific packaging whether that be regulation-complaint packaging, tamper proof seals, or discreet package options.

Solution: Work with a fulfillment provider that offers compliant packaging options tailored to your needs.

Poor Communication or Visibility

Most fulfillment problems often stem from lack of transparency and visibility. The need to have full visibility into your inventory and orders is crucial.

Solution: Use a 3PL that offers a client dashboard with visibility into your orders, inventory, and lots. Make sure they have in-house support and SLAs to make sure all of your requests are fulfilled in a timely manner.

No Shipping Flexibilities

Many fulfillment companies require you to ship on their own shipping accounts as marked up shipping rates are a revenue stream for them. This puts major limitations on who you can work with as all of the big names in medical distribution require you to ship orders on their accounts.

Solution: Make sure your new 3PL partner has support for 3rd party shipping. If their platform supports the ability to assign 3rd party accounts to specific orders thats a huge added bonus as generating and sending those labels yourself could prove to be time consuming.

Customization Limitations

You never want to feel stuck when issues happen with your products or clients request changes your fulfillment partner can’t accommodate. Needing to move inventory to another company just to get changes made could be costly.

Solution: Selecting a 3PL partner that has endless customization capabilities can make sure every request you ever need is properly handled. That could be anything from re-labeling due to misprinted labels during manufacturing or repackaging products into client specific packaging for private label orders.

The Bottom Line

Healthcare and medical fulfillment is more about just shipping boxes; it’s about trust, precision, and partnership. The right fulfillment provider can help your company grow with peace of mind while the wrong one can bring you down and cause endless headaches.

Whether you’re launching a new product line or scaling your existing company, having the right 3PL partner makes all the difference.